Buddhist Suttas — SBE Vol. 11 (Clarendon Press, 1881) page scans

! '

56. And the Brdhman of VeMadipa heard the news that the Blessed One had died at KusinsLri. And the Brâhman of VeMadipa sent a messenger to the Mallas, saying, ' The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and I am a Brâhman. I am worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will I put up a sacred cairn, and in their honour will I celebrate a feast ! '

VI.

mahA-parinibbAna-su tta.

p. 133

57. And the Mallas of P£v& heard the news that the Blessed One had died at Kusindri.

Then the Mallas of Pava sent a messenger to the Mallas, saying, ' The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a sacred cairn, and in their honour will we celebrate a feast ! '

58. When they heard these things the Mallas of
Kusinari spoke to the assembled brethren, saying,
'The Blessed One died in our village domain.
We will not give away any part of the remains of
the Blessed One ! '

59. When they had thus spoken, Dona, the Brahman addressed the assembled brethren, and said :

4 Hear, reverend sirs, one single word from me.
Forbearance was our Buddha wont to teach.
Unseemly is it that over the division
Of the remains of him who was the best of
beings

Strife should arise, and wounds, and war !

Let us all, sirs, with one accord unite

In friendly harmony to make eight portions.

Wide spread let Thfipas rise in every land

That in the Enlightened One mankind may trust ! '

60. * Do thou then, O Brâhman, thyself divide the remains of the Blessed One equally into eight parts, with fair division V

* Be it so, sir ! ' said Dona, in assent, to the assem-

1 Here again the commentator expands and adds to the comparatively simple version of the text.

p. 134

CH.

bled brethren. And he divided the remains of the Blessed One equally into eight parts, with fair division. And he said to them : ' Give me, sirs, this vessel, and I will set up over it a sacred cairn, and in its honour will I establish a feast.'

And they gave the vessel to Dona the Brâhman.

61. And the Moriyas of Pipphalivana heard the news that the Blessed One had died at KusinArA.

Then the Moriyas of Pipphalivana sent a messenger to the Mallas, saying, 1 The Blessed One belonged to the soldier caste, and we too are of the soldier caste. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Blessed One. Over the remains of the Blessed One will we put up a sacred cairn, and in their honour will we celebrate a feast ! '

And when they heard the answer, saying, 1 There is no portion of the remains of the Blessed One left over. The remains of the Blessed One are all distributed/ then they took away the embers.

62.

s of the Blessed One will we put up a sacred cairn, and in their honour will we celebrate a feast ! '

And when they heard the answer, saying, 1 There is no portion of the remains of the Blessed One left over. The remains of the Blessed One are all distributed/ then they took away the embers.

62. Then the king of Magadha, A^tasattu, the son of the queen of the Videha clan, made a mound in Rd^agaha over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast.

And the lAkkhzvis of Vesdli made a mound in Vesdli over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast.

And the Bulis of Allakappa made a mound in Allakappa over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast.

And the Koliyas of Rlmagâma made a mound in
Ramagdma over the remains of the Blessed One,
and held a feast.

VI.

maha-parinibbAna-sutta.

i3S

And VeMadipaka the Brahman made a mound in Ve^adipa over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast.

And the Mallas of P£vA made a mound in P£v£ over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast.

And the Mallas of KusindrS. made a mound in KusindrA over the remains of the Blessed One, and held a feast.

And Dona the Brfihman made a mound over the vessel in which the body had been burnt, and held a feast.

And the Moriyas of Pipphalivana made a mound over the embers, and held a feast.

Thus were there eight mounds [Thfipas] for the remains, and one for the vessel, and one for the embers. This was how it used to be \

[63. Eight measures of relics there were of him of the far-seeing eye, Of the best of the best of men. In India seven are worshipped, And one measure in Râmagctma, by the kings of the serpent race. One tooth, too, is honoured in heaven, and one in

Gandhdras city,
One in the Kilinga realm, and one more by the

Naga race.

1 Here closes Buddhaghosa's long and edifying commentary.
He has no note on the following verses, which he says were added
by Theras in Ceylon. The additional verse found in the Phayre
MS. was in the same way probably added in Burma.

p. 1

Through their glory the bountiful earth is made bright with offerings painless — For with such are the Great Teacher s relics best honoured by those who are honoured, By gods and by Nâgas and kings, yea, thus by

the noblest of monarchs —
Bow down with clasped hands !
Hard, hard is a Buddha to meet with through

hundreds of ages !]

End of the Book of the Great Decease.'

D H AM M AA'AK KAPPA VAT- TANA-SUTTA.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

FOUNDATION OF THE KINGDOM
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

THIS translation is made from a transcript of the text as found in the very beautiful Ceylon MS. on silver plates, now in the British Museum The letters, which are perfectly formed, are cut into the silver ; and the MS. has this peculiarity, that every sentence is repeated with a slight change in the collocation of the words. Thus the first sentence is given as follows : —

Evaw me sutam.

n MS. on silver plates, now in the British Museum The letters, which are perfectly formed, are cut into the silver ; and the MS. has this peculiarity, that every sentence is repeated with a slight change in the collocation of the words. Thus the first sentence is given as follows : —

Evaw me sutam. Rkam samayaw Bhagava Bâra//asiyaw viharati Isipatane Migaddye. Me evaw sutaw. Ekaw samayaw BhagavS, Bâr£#asiydLtn Isipatane Migadâye viharati.

As this repetition is merely carried out for the further security of the text it has not been followed in the translation.

This text belongs to the Ahguttara Nikâya. M. Lâm Feer has lithographed the Sawyutta treatment in his ' Textes tires du Kandjour V together with the text of the corresponding passage in the Lalita Vistara, and the Tibetan translation from that poem. The Sanskrit text, so far as it runs parallel with our Sutta, will also be found in Rajendra Lai Mitra's edition of the Lalita Vistara (p. 540 and foil.) and the Tibetan text, with a French translation, in M. Foucaux's ' rGya Cher Rol Pa.' Dr. Oldenberg has just published the Vinaya treatment contained in the Mahd Vagga I, 6. It is the same word for word as our Sutta (except § 1, which is of course not found there). The Sawyutta expands the idea of the portion numbered below §§ 9-20, having also similar paragraphs in reference to the bhikkhus themselves. The

1 MS. Egerton, 794; bought from a bookseller named Rodel in 1839. a Livraison, No. X.

I40 FOUNDATION OF KINGDOM OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Lalita Vistara differs a good deal in minor details, but is substantially the same as regards the Noble Truths, and the eight divisions of the Noble Path.

A translation of this Sutta, found among Mr. Gogerly's papers after his death, was published in the Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society for 1865: and the Journal Asiatique for 1870 contained a translation and full analysis by M. L6on Feer.

It would be difficult to estimate too highly the historical value of this Sutta. There can be no reasonable doubt that the very ancient tradition accepted by all Buddhists as to the substance of the discourse is correct, and that we really have in it a summary of the words in which the great Indian thinker and reformer for the first time successfully promulgated his new ideas. And it presents to us in a few short and pithy sentences the very essence of that remarkable system which has had so profound an influence on the religious history of so large a portion of the human race.

The name given to it by the early Buddhists — the setting in motion onwards of the royal chariot-wheel of the supreme dominion of the Dhamma — means, as I have shown elsewhere *, not ' the turning of the wheel of the law/ as it has been usually rendered ; but c the inauguration, or foundation, of the Kingdom of Righteousness.'

Is it possible that the praying wheels of Thibet have led
to the misapprehension and mistranslation now so common ?
But who would explain a passage in the